Health Care Costs

ATLANTA — On a recent summer evening, Raymia Taylor wandered into a recreation center in a historical downtown neighborhood, the only enrollee to attend a nearly two-hour event for people who have signed up for Georgia’s experimental Medicaid expansion. The state launched the program in July 2023, requiring participants to document that they’re working, studying, […]

WINDER, Ga. — About an hour after gunfire erupted at Apalachee High School, ambulances started arriving at nearby Northeast Georgia Medical Center Barrow with two students and two adults suffering from panic attacks and extreme anxiety, not bullet wounds. A fifth patient with similar symptoms later arrived at another local facility, according to a health […]

When Jessica Staten’s kidney stones wouldn’t pass, she said, her doctor suggested a procedure to “blow ’em up.” She went to have it done last November at St. Joseph Medical Center in Bellingham, Washington, one of nine hospitals that the Catholic health system PeaceHealth operates in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. “I was probably there […]

When Vice President Kamala Harris walked across the debate stage Tuesday night to shake the hand of former President Donald Trump, it was the first time the two had met in person. But that was the rare collegial moment in a face-off otherwise marked by false and sometimes bizarre statements by the former president. The […]

Cuando la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris cruzó el escenario del debate el martes 10 por la noche para darle la mano al ex presidente Donald Trump, fue la primera vez que los dos se conocían en persona. Fue un breve y raro momento de cordialidad en un enfrentamiento marcado por declaraciones falsas y, a veces, bizarras […]

LOS ANGELES — For nearly a decade, John Baackes has led L.A. Care Health Plan, a publicly run insurer primarily serving low-income Los Angeles County residents on Medi-Cal. It is by far the largest Medi-Cal plan in the state. Baackes, 78, who will retire after the end of the year, helped transform L.A. Care into […]

Former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are both eager to take on high drug prices, leaving pharmaceutical companies on the defensive as they spend millions of dollars this election season. When Harris was California’s attorney general, she joined cases that resulted in almost $7.2 billion (about $22 per person in the United […]

Caitlyn Mai thought she did everything right. She called ahead to make sure her insurer would cover her cochlear implant surgery. She thought everything went according to plan but she still got a bill for the full cost of the surgery: more than $139,000.  What Caitlyn did next is a reminder of why a beloved […]

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have a rare point of agreement in their otherwise bitter and divisive contest: It’s up to the government to cut high U.S. drug prices. Harris cast the tie-breaking Senate vote in 2022 for legislation that allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices for its more than 60 […]

A hard-won provision of the Affordable Care Act allows young adults to stay on their family’s health insurance until age 26. But after that, those without employer-sponsored insurance face an array of complicated choices, including whether to shop on the insurance plan exchange, apply for Medicaid, or roll the dice and go uninsured. Are you […]